Tenebris Somnia is out now, and it is one of the stranger horror releases of the season. It plays like a 2D survival horror game from the 8 and 16-bit era, with puzzles, scarce supplies and things crawling out of the dark. Then, at key moments, it cuts to live-action scenes shot with real actors and practical effects. Director Andrés Borghi and the Argentine team at Saibot Studios made it, and New Blood Interactive released it today on computers and consoles.
Two ways to see the same nightmare
The official description on Steam puts it in the line of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, adapted to a retro 2D look. Most of the time you move a small pixel-art figure through apartments, hallways and elevators, managing an inventory, solving puzzles and fighting creatures. When the story hits certain points, the game shows you the same events from a completely different point of view, filmed in live action by what the studio calls an award-winning film crew from Argentina.
That swap is the hook. The screenshots line the two worlds up almost frame for frame: a red-hooded figure screaming in a pixel bathroom, then the same figure lunging out of a dark doorway in live action, built with practical effects. The tagline asks the obvious question: what if they aren't just nightmares?
Who made it
Steam credits Andrés Borghi and Saibot Studios as the developers. Saibot describes itself as a group of independent videogame creators from Argentina, founded and directed by Tobías Rusjan in 2011. Before this, the studio made The Black Heart, a gothic 2D versus fighting game, and Out of Bounds, a puzzle shooter about fixing bugs inside a game.
New Blood Interactive, the publisher behind retro-styled games like Blood West, posted a short developer feature on its own channel ahead of launch. In it, Borghi as director, executive producer Mason Smith, known online as Airdorf, and New Blood chief executive Dave Oshry discuss how the retro horror game and its live-action cutscenes came together. On launch day, New Blood also put a Steam Deck startup movie called DEVORA into the Steam Points Shop, which tells you how much the team leans into the cinematic side.
Where to play it
Tenebris Somnia is out everywhere today. You can grab it on Steam and GOG for Windows, on PlayStation 5, on Xbox Series X|S, and on the Nintendo eShop, with New Blood listing Nintendo Switch 2 on its official page. Launch week pricing is running on the digital stores, so check each storefront. A free demo is also listed on Steam if you want to try the first stretch before you commit.
Physical editions are up for pre-order through the link on New Blood's official page. Steam lists support for English, Spanish for Spain and Latin America, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese.
Why it is worth your October
Plenty of games borrow the look of 1990s horror. Fewer try to bring back the full-motion video idea from that same era, where filmed scenes sat inside a game, and almost none pair it with pixel art this tightly. Tenebris Somnia feels like a lost late-night cable discovery, the kind of thing that sits next to a stack of rented horror tapes.
If that is your lane, pair it with our list of the best horror movies of all time, our guide to starting a VHS collection, and another horror game that came back this month, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival.
